Sága and the End of the World
by TheAngryTori
Summary: The Convergence changed everything. The æther snatched her right out of the universe, and put her somewhere...else. She spent an eternity finding her way back, only to return to a disbanded Avengers, a fugitive father, a warrant for her arrest - and a missing Bruce Banner. But she is Sághildr, daughter of Heimdall, and not even Ragnarok will stop her from bringing him home again.
1. Beyond Yggdrasil

_Author's Note:_ Hey. So it's, uh...been a while. Several years, to be exact, and I still can't ever manage to wrap my mind around the reception that Sága received when it was posted, and continues to receive. I can't tell you how grateful I am to everyone who read and reviewed that story of mine, and helped me to become the writer I am today.

I saw Thor: Ragnarok the other day, and realized that, while I haven't written much for the character in so long, I wasn't quite done with Sághildr, and she isn't done with me. I had to do something, had to get it written down. I have several strong ideas of where I want this to go, but it isn't totally mapped out in my head yet, and my life looks very different today than it did when I was publishing the original story. I can't make much guarantee for the promptness of updates, but...we'll see what happens.

Anyway. If you read, please review and let me know what you think. And thank you.

* * *

Chapter One: _Beyond Yggdrasil_

Before the Other Lands, the thought of exile would have ruined her. For a thousand years, she had striven to assert her right to belong in her father's country. To waste all those centuries, all her efforts, all she had so long desired... Once, that would have been unfathomable. But time seemed of little consequence, once you'd gone without it.

The convergence had changed _everything_ —or, at least, her relationship to it. The æther had taken her somewhere...new. It had taken her somewhere very, very old.

The land beyond Yggdrasil had been expansive, to say the least; even her keen eyesight could not see to the end of it. But the fabric of space was as thin, there, as that of time. She wandered for an eternity, never tired, never hungry, hurtling through any portal she came across in the desperate belief that—somewhere—one would take her to a place that she could recognize. And when the fear set in that her mind, jumbled as it was by her journeys across that wretched land, might fail to remember her own universe, she had taken matters into her own hands.

A fit of despair had revealed that she could not bleed there; and so she had taken the sharp rock with which she'd intended to end her trek, and carved her memories into her arms—the gleaming city of Asgard, the towering New York skyline, the ruin of Jotunheim, fiery Muspelheim, golden Nidavellir against darkened Svartalfheim...and Vanaheim, where she fell through the final portal and landed face-first in a wooded river, certain for one unspeakably wretched moment that she had found her way back, after all that searching, only to immediately drown.

But she had heard her father's voice say, " _Get up_ ," and she had stood, and then fallen to her knees, but her head had still been above the shallow water.

She looked, and looked again. " _...Papa..?_ " she croaked—she had rarely used her voice in the Other Lands, as she'd had nothing to speak to—and the white light spilled from her lips and coursed along her skin, healing the cuts she'd made before the water could carry away too much of the blood that now flowed freely. "Papa, why can I not see you?"

"Much has happened, _elskan mín_."

Her vision swam, her father's magic pouring into her. When she opened her eyes, she was kneeling in a dark cavern, her father before her; she reached out to touch him, but her hands passed through like mist. She could yet feel the waters flowing around her. This was merely a vision.

Even so—in her journey away, she had nearly forgotten his face. She allowed her eyes to have their fill, determined never again to lose him from her memory.

"Sághildr," he called, and she shuddered.

"That—" She shook her head, not knowing when she'd started crying. "That is my _name!_ "

" _Oh_ , my Sága..." He reached out as if to hold her, but she was no more tangible than he. " _Yes_ , my girl. You are Sághildr, daughter of Heimdall and of your mother Eira, guardian of Midgard—"

But she shook her head, reeling back from the vision, peering through it from her place in the river, trying to find him where he was speaking to her. "Papa, why can I not see you? Why are you not on the bridge? Why do you not bring me to you?"

He shook his head. "I am sorry, my girl, to use your own magic against you. No one must know my location, not even you. It is not safe. You may not return to Asgard, nor can I come to you. Much has happened." He stood slowly, and she followed, and the magic shifted, and they were both standing in the river, and her father was pointing downstream. "Follow the water," he told her, though his voice came from very far away. "The Vanir will take you in, and keep you safe."

But she swayed in the water, and shook her head, still searching through the realms.

There was a ring on her finger. There was a man with big, brown eyes and warm, gentle hands, who had given it to her. " _Bruce,_ " she remembered—she had carved the name into her wrist. "Papa, why can I not see him? Where is Bruce?"

Her father turned to her, tried to touch her again. "I am sorry, my Sága. He was lost through another tear in the universe. We think he was looking for you."

"No." She shook her head, her body. She scrambled out of the river, fell upon the dewy shore. She pressed her face into the grass and screamed.

"Sága, _please_ ," her father called. "You have been through an ordeal I cannot fathom. You must rest, but you cannot stay here. _Komdu, elskan mín_."

This could not be the life she had left. She lifted herself up on her forearms and turned to look at him, a frigid horror creeping into her chest. "How do I know, papa? What if this is...the wrong universe, the wrong...version? What if I came through the _wrong portal?!_ "

The man with her father's face came to sit beside her, and sighed. "I...do not know, Sághildr. Perhaps this is not where you came from. Perhaps you are not the daughter that was lost to me. But if you are not, then I can only hope there is another Heimdall who has found her, making certain that she is safe. And I would owe it to your Heimdall to do the same for you."

With a final sob, she sat up, staring down at her hands, her arms. The magic had healed her cuts, but the lines remained, pale scars stark against brown skin. She gripped her bald scalp—she had used strands of her own hair, tied around bare branches, to mark the way she had come through a dense and endless forest, running out of hair long before she ever found the portal that freed her of that lonely place.

But she was home now.

Or, at least, as close as she was likely to come. Maybe there was another tear in the universe somewhere, one that could take her to a Yggdrasil that was no different than the one she had left. But there was no guarantee she would ever find it, and she was _here_ now, and so was her father, and somewhere in the folds of space and time there was a man who had given a woman a ring, and she owed it to her to find him and bring him home.

She lurched to her feet, rubbed her knuckles against tired eyes, and turned to look along the river. "Just...follow the water?"

"You will be safe there," Heimdall assured her. "You must keep yourself hidden, even from me. But not forever, I promise you."

She laughed; she could not remember how her laughter had sounded before, but even so it sounded loud and harsh and bitter. "Forever? There is no such thing."

* * *

She had been in the Other Lands for an eternity. In Yggdrasil, she had been gone for two years.

The river led her to one of the cities of Vanaheim, and to a familiar face; Hogun's, his eyes still glowing with the golden light of her father's sight. What Heimdall had told him, she could not know—never before had she understood the frustration she caused her father whenever she hid herself from his sight—but Hogun had taken her in, and kept her safe, as promised.

He told her much of what had happened in her absence: of the funeral held for Prince Loki, of Thor's departure on a quest for answers, of the way the Allfather's good sense had deteriorated in the absence of his wife and sons...and of the charge of treason leveled against the now-fugitive Heimdall and his daughter.

The Allfather knew her magic, could easily sense it if she came near. Were she to set foot upon Asgard's golden shores, the price would be imprisonment, or exile, or worse.

She had been unable to access her magic in the Other Lands. Sághildr would not allow the old man to take it from her now that it had returned, nor ever again.

Her days on Vanaheim were quiet and simple, and there was much in that to be grateful for. She had not realized the true value of suns and moons that rose and set, nor of days and nights that came and went on the same circuit, over and over again. There were birds that sang the morning's arrival, and winds that blew sweet smells and cool breezes, and trees that shed their leaves and fruits. There were things to hear and see and smell and taste and touch, ever different, ever the same, and she found pleasure in both the complex and the familiar.

On her second day back, Hogun had journeyed to Asgard, and returned with a few of her old clothes, some books, and her father's pipe. She rarely went out during the day—the Vanir were still loyal to the throne of Asgard, and there was no telling what would happen if she were to be recognized—but she knew how to hide herself in the dark, and the night was her own. She'd taken to sitting on Hogun's roof, to smoke and stare at the stars, watching her old friends, searching for her lover.

Some nights, her vision would swim, and an image of her father would join her. He would tell her the same bad jokes; "I see you're keeping my pipe warm for me," and, "If your mother knew I let you smoke, well...she'd forgive me, but I would not deserve it." But he never told her not to; more than anything, he seemed only to want to speak of mamma. They would sit beneath the stars and tell stories of Eira Jónsdottir, and of Sága's childhood in Kópavogur. There were many gaps in her memory, things her mind had been unable to hold onto; but those quiet nights with Heimdall helped her to put the pieces together, to recreate the image of the woman she had been before.

Three months passed, and she knew there was little more she could gain from staying here, and only greater risk for her host if he were to be discovered sheltering her. She packed her things, both pleased and distressed to find that all she had could fit so neatly into such a small bag, and went to thank Hogun for helping her.

"You were always my favorite of Thor's friends," she told him softly, the words childishly sentimental even to her own ears, but he had smiled in return.

"I am sorry that we were not better friends to _you_ , when given the chance."

"You have more than made up for it now. Thank you for helping me find my way."

"And where will you go? What will you do?"

"I will find Bruce Banner," she told him, as much a promise as an answer. "I will search as long as it takes."

He had bowed his head at that, still smiling. "Then I wish you a shorter journey than the one that brought you to me. Take care, Sághildr."

"And you, Hogun," she called, and let the magic of her voice whirl around her.

* * *

She had not used her magic for such a distance since her return. This time, when the magic took her...

Sághildr opened her eyes. She saw the iridescent sky, the Great Tree, the desolate expanse she had wandered for an eternity...

And she saw the _roads_.

Her magic had not worked in the Other Lands. But here she stood, and there it glowed, coursing through the landscape, arcing through the roots and branches of Yggdrasil, as white against the dark wood as the scars upon her arms, leading her anywhere she wanted to go.

This place had nearly destroyed her, but she had overcome. Now, it waited for her, just beyond the Nine Realms, with baited breath and open arms, like an old friend.

She knelt down, placed her hand upon the road beneath her, and knew it was the one she needed. She closed her eyes, and smiled.


	2. Memories and Friends

Chapter Two: _Memories and Friends_

When she opened her eyes, it was snowing.

She wasn't dressed warmly enough for midwinter in Chicago, but the cold and biting wind felt refreshing, felt new. It smelled differently than Vanaheim, and even that was a delight, though the smell was decidedly worse.

The street was unassuming, a little run-down, a little gentrified, nothing out of the ordinary for its city. There were flower boxes on windowsills, waiting out the cold and frost to flourish again, come spring. Fire escapes had been repurposed as porches and balconies, stoops and corner stores as town halls and meeting rooms. She drew a little attention in her leggings and cloak; but one of the women on the stoop she needed rolled her eyes and muttered something to her neighbor about the state of modern fashion, and all was absolved.

The door she needed was on the top floor, and painted green. She tried not to think about it, and knocked, and waited for the sound of the extra locks being undone and for the door to be cracked and an eye to peek out.

"Well. You look terrible."

"You know I always appreciate your honesty. But just this once, I could have used a little lie."

The woman frowned, the eye narrowed. "How'd you find me?"

"What makes you think I could have ever lost you? You do make a fetching brunette, but I know your voice. I could hear you anywhere. If you worry whether I was followed; anyone to follow me would have to be very clever and very, very fast."

"Forgive me if I don't find that reassuring. We've made some new...friends, since you've been gone."

"And lost a few, as well."

"...Come in. I think I have some tea around here somewhere."

"I'll take something stronger, if you have it. Thank you."

The studio was both compact and bare, hardly suitable for habitation and even less so for company. But her host was well-supplied in vodka, and gracious enough to cover a few innocuous-looking items with overturned wine glasses.

There was a mirror on the wall. Sága looked, and saw that her friend had already been lying a little. Her face looked waxy and thin, her eyes sunken and fever-bright against the darkened skin beneath them. She _had_ been eating since her return, but she'd been having trouble remembering how often it was necessary to do so, and it showed. Her hair was beginning to grow back in a thin, uneven layer of downy, white curls, longer in some spots than others. She looked horrid.

"I take it you haven't found him yet."

She ran a hand over her hair, trying to smooth down the bits that stood too tall, and sank into a fraying armchair. "No. I have not." A glass of vodka was pressed into her hand, and she drank deeply. "Sometimes, I get these...flashes. A glimpse of him, somewhere... Always the same place, but nowhere I recognize, nowhere I can find. It's like looking through two mirrors turned together. He's there, just beyond where I can see...but I turn my head, strain for a better view, and he's...gone."

Her companion listened carefully, quietly, staring into her drink. "When you see him," she began, her voice soft and cautious, "how does he look?"

She was quiet for some time, picking her words carefully—the disguise was good, the apartment believable; but she'd made such a show of covering those microphones, Sága couldn't help but suspect that there were others she had left listening. "...Angry," she finally said, as evenly as she could, but there was a twitch around the woman's eye that assured that her meaning had been understood. "I have never seen him calm since I returned."

Her friend swore under her breath, shook her head, and then stilled in the complete and perfect way that only she could. "But he's not in any pain?"

"No. Not that I have seen."

"Well. Small miracle, that."

She shuddered, and hid her face in her hands, and forced herself not to cry. The metal of her ring dug into her cheek—she took a deep breath and let it ground her. "I made him a promise, Tasha. I told him I would never again leave him. But I did, and now all this has happened."

"This isn't your fault. I made a promise, too: that I would take care of him while you were gone. You did what you had to do. He knew that. We all did."

Even so, Sága shook her head. "I was not to be gone so long. Now my friend is dead, my father is a fugitive, my lover is missing, and I have been evicted from a home that never loved me."

"And here you are."

It startled a laugh out of her. "...And here I am." She finished off her drink, and sat up in the chair. "I am sorry to drop in on you like this. But I need to find him. My father said he went through a wormhole, but there was not much else he could tell me. I thought you might know a little more."

Natasha shrugged, but stood and stepped into what must be a sort of kitchen. "Maybe a little. Don't get your hopes up, though. We've been looking, too." She opened a drawer and pulled out a phone, switching out SIM cards and memory, then typing furiously.

She came back with the bottle, tossed the phone to Sága and refilled her glass. "I've given you access to everything we have on him. He left on a quinjet, cloaked, over Sokovia. Last known heading, speed and elevation are all there. There were some...anomalies in the sky that night; Stark said something about gravitational displacement, equilibrium, that sort of thing. But we don't know how long he kept flying after he cut the comms. He could've gone anywhere. You saying you've seen him at all is the closest I've come to good news in six months."

Sága nodded, scrolling through the images and charts she'd pulled up, fingers hovering over an image of Bruce Banner—an older photograph, from before she had met him. His hair was longer and darker, his face a little more round, but his eyes were the same. "Thank you, Natasha. I mean it. I know I was...gruff with you, when we first met. It was unwarranted, and I am sorry. You have been a good friend."

The woman's resulting laugh was uncharacteristically harsh. She downed her second glass of vodka, and poured herself a third. "Don't be so quick to praise me. There's still something I haven't told you, and I don't want to, but I'm gonna."

Sága set her glass down, carefully, on the chair's well-worn armrest. "Is it the reason you refuse to look me in the eye?"

For the first time since she had shown up at her door, Natasha met her gaze—but only for a moment, before quickly turning away. She drained her glass, again, but did not refill it. "Before he left, I, uhh...kissed him."

"...Oh."

"I didn't mean to," she blurted, then winced. "I mean, I _did_ , but...Y'know, I... We needed him angry, so I kissed him and shoved him off a cliff, and, well, it _worked_. But then he changed, and he did what we needed him to, and then he got in the jet and just...flew off!" She took a sharp breath, and fell back against the stiff wooden chair. "I'm...sorry. I'm the reason he ran away."

Sága couldn't think of anything to say. The shitty apartment was quiet, but for the chugging of the refrigerator and the dripping of the faucet and her own halting breaths. She stared down at her hands, at the ring on her finger, at the scar on her wrist, at the name written there. She had clawed her way out of a desolate alternate universe for that name.

She tugged her sleeves down.

"I'm not... It isn't..." She took a deep breath, and had a little more vodka. "I was gone a long time, Natasha. And I... He gave me this ring, but I... We never married. I don't remember why, now. It didn't seem so pressing. I thought we had plenty of time."

She shook her head, stood, and started pacing in the little room. "What I mean to say is... Well. I won't force him to do anything. I love him, so I will find him and bring him home. Whatever happens once he has been returned is up to him. I only need him safe."

Natasha caught her eye again, and this time held it. They stared at each other for a long moment, sizing one another up. "Just like that? You're not angry, not...jealous?"

"Anger's more _his_ thing, not mine." The woman looked understandably suspicious, but Sága didn't know what else to say. She tossed back the rest of her drink, and shrugged. Her fingers itched for her father's pipe, but it was down in the bottom of her bag somewhere. "My mother was human, Tasha. When I was young, I couldn't understand why papa did not marry her, did not live with us on Midgard, did not give up his life for ours. I knew he loved her. I know he still does. But it is different, from this side of things. My father never warned me against taking up with mortals. Perhaps he knew it would only make me determined to do so to spite him. Still, I wish he had said something. I wish anything could have prepared me to feel like this."

"...Like what?"

"Like... Like who am I to expect a mortal man to always love me?" She shook her head. "I am too old and too young for him. He deserves a chance at a normal life, or as close to it as possible. I will not be able to grow old with him."

"But you love him."

Sága sighed, and sank back into the armchair. "I do. But that does not mean I get to be selfish." She shoved her sleeves up—Natasha gasped at the sight—and ran her fingers along the pearly white lines of New York's skyline in her skin. It was wrong, already; new buildings had sprung up like wildflowers, others had been cut down like trees. But it was embedded in her skin, as it had once been, perhaps for the rest of her life. In a hundred, a thousand years, all of it would be destroyed and rebuilt anew.

"...Everything is different now," she murmured. "Everything changes. We cannot stop it. The best we can do is remember how it was, and ensure the change is for the better."

Natasha watched her carefully, silently, for several long moments. Then she dropped her eyes, and softly asked, "What was it like here, a hundred years ago?"

Sága looked up, surprised, and then smiled. "I didn't spend much time on Midgard after my mother died; not until I met all of you. But I was here, in Chicago even, for the Exposition."

"The..? Wait, you were here for the _World's Fair?_ "

"It was _magnificent_. All a response to the one in Paris, where the Tower was unveiled, of course, but even so... There was nothing so grand back then. That white city, gleaming in all that artificial light! Oh, Thor was _beside_ himself to see what you humans had done with electricity. And the _wheel!_ Such a marvel, all for the sake of pleasure. No other race is so deeply motivated by joy, I assure you."

"I gotta admit, I'm having trouble picturing you in a big, Victorian dress," Natasha laughed, and so did Sága.

"I think I managed to find some trousers there; women were starting to ride bicycles, you know, especially at the Fair. I am very glad that you all have given up on corsets, though. They weren't quite so bad as people think, but you're certainly better off without them."

"Is that so?"

Sága grinned, and held out her hand. "May I show you?"

The woman hesitated, but only for a moment. "Alright."

She stood, and stepped over to where her friend was perched so delicately upon a few milk crates, and pressed her fingertips to her temple.

Her memory was a little fuzzy on the details, but she could remember clearly the way it had felt.

The Bifrost had dropped them in the middle of a field in Illinois, and Sága had taken them the rest of the way—Thor, Loki, the Lady Sif and the Warriors Three, and she had all passed through the gate together, their sudden arrival gone unnoticed in the press of the crowd. She showed Natasha their first time around Ferris's Wheel; and Loki rowing her along the lagoon; and drinking orange cider on the wooded island after dark, with fairy lights gleaming all around.

Sága took a breath, and released them both from the memory. Natasha caught her hand before she could pull away, and gripped it tight. She did not open her eyes, but spoke. "Why would you show me this, after what I've done?"

Sága leaned forward, and kissed her forehead softly. "Because you are my friend. Because I want you to know I do not blame you for what happened, and neither should you blame yourself."

Tasha squeezed her eyes closed, and sighed. "What's your plan? How are you going to find him?"

"I intend to ask around. I thought, perhaps, that Stark might know something, but from what I've seen since I returned...I suppose we'll see. You've saved me a visit to what's left of Shield, though I may yet check in with Captain Rogers. And Thor is out there somewhere, and does not know I have returned. After that, well..."

She took a step back and held up her hand, letting her magic flow, washing over her skin and trickling down along the lines beneath her sleeve. If she flexed her fingers just so, she could feel the coarse ground of the Other Lands, the rushing winds, the surging power of the road she stood on. "I have learned...something _new_ about my power. I have discovered where I am when I am in-between. I have seen the roads that connect all things. The æther took much from me, but it gave me something in return. I will follow those roads; as many as it takes until I find him."

Natasha nodded, slowly. "And when you aren't on those 'roads'? Where're you gonna sleep? What are you planning to eat? Because, honestly, you look like you haven't done either in way too long."

Sága lifted her chin proudly, determinedly not looking toward the mirror. "Finding shelter has never been a problem for me before."

"Right, right, cool your jets, I just meant... Y'know, if you need a place to crash... It isn't much, but you're welcome here."

"...Oh." She sank back into the armchair. "Thank you. That is very kind."

Natasha shrugged and stood, taking their glasses to the leaky sink. "Don't mention it. That's what friends are for."

* * *

She remembered Asgard in flames. She remembered watching Lady Frigga fall. She remembered the white, blinding rage that near consumed her. She remembered the fight; the dark elf's annoyance at her magic; the way he twisted his wrist and she'd dropped to the floor and been unable to move. She remembered the Kursed grabbing her. She remembered falling.

She remembered nothing, for a time.

And then she'd found herself on Midgard again, the other eight realms drifting slowly into place above her; the æther rushing, surging all around. The dark elf stood above her, his mouth moving though she could not hear his voice above the screaming in her head.

Thor was here. She looked, but Loki wasn't in his cell, so _where_ —oh.

 _Oh..._

She lifted herself up onto her forearms and retched into the grass, but no one took any notice of her.

She fell into her own sick, exhausted and overwhelmed. Where was her magic? What had the elf done to it?

A tendril of the æther hooked around her wrist and nearly tore her arm off; but she pulled back, dragging the reddish sludge into her body, letting it pour into her veins. It was too much, the magic like red-hot lava coursing through her marrow. She tried to scream, but couldn't know if any sound came out. Still, it was enough for one wild, desperate jump.

She peered through the haze, too far from Asgard, searching desperately until she found him, the man she loved.

He smiled softly, only barely acknowledging a joke Stark had told. He was in the tower, in her tower, surrounded by glass, nestled in their favorite loveseat with a mug of tea in his hands. He looked tired, and worried, but resolved. She had left him when her father called, warning of a threat to Asgard. For all she knew, she'd only been gone for two days.

She opened her mouth, determined to use this wrong, stolen magic to take her to him.

She was too slow. With a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder, Thor drove a stake into the dark elf's heart. The æther came rushing back—out of the sky, out of the nine realms, and into her. The screaming in her head became her own. The silence that followed belonged to something else.

The æther still raced, within and around her; she forced her eyes open through the pain, but did not know where she was, did not recognize any feature of the landscape and this, truly, was worse than the searing pain. A hand gripped her shoulder—Sága screamed...

...And _woke_.

Natasha stood before her, cradling one hand in the other.

" _Shit_ ," Sága hissed, lurching out of the armchair. "Did I hurt you? Let me see—"

"No, no, it's fine," she assured, flexing her fingers and holding out her hand for the both of them to see. "Just startled me, that's all. You okay?"

Sága shivered, but nodded. "I...yes. Thank you."

"That was some dream, huh?"

She ran a hand over her short curls with a sigh. "...Yes, it was. Was I...screaming?"

"Whimpering, more like," she answered, and Sága frowned. But Natasha went on, "You were glowing, too. That's what woke me. And sort of... _levitating_ , I guess, a couple feet above the chair."

"I was... _what?_ "

"You know, floating. What, can't you do that?"

"Not to my knowledge." She looked down at her feet and tried to imagine what it would feel like to fly, tried to channel her magic into it, but...nothing. "No, I don't believe I can."

"Oh." Natasha frowned, and looked at her feet as well. "That's...probably fine, right?"

"Sure. Yes. Probably."

"Okay. Good. Well, I'm going back to bed, then." She snuggled deeper into her fuzzy, pink bathrobe—the one Sága'd had to swear she would never tell anyone about—and returned to her bed in the back corner of her room, but there she hesitated. "Listen, if you're having those kinds of dreams... You might wanna check in on Stark sooner, rather than later. You guys might be able to help each other out."

She eased herself back down into the armchair, scooping up the cloak she'd been using as a blanket off the floor. "Finding Bruce is my top priority," Sága snapped, more harshly than necessary. "My shit will sort itself out."

" _Sure_ it will," she snapped right back, and climbed into bed. "One way or another. 'Night."

"...Good night."

She waited until the sound of even breathing assured her that Natasha had fallen asleep, before ducking into what served as the bathroom, pulling the curtain closed and removing her tunic.

She'd had a brief flash of uncertainty, a moment of terror that the scars in her arms were flooded with the dark red of blood, of æther. But she turned herself this way and that before the mirror, and saw nothing unusual, nothing new, nothing dangerous.

With a shudder, she put her shirt back on, and went out, and folded herself back into the chair. She would not sleep again tonight, she knew. But she would at least wait until morning, to make her apologies to her friend, and to follow her advice.


End file.
